CDI - Chungdahm Institute
Chung Dahm Institute (CDI) teaches English as a Second Language (ESL) to students in South Korea. It is the main branch of Chung Dahm Holdings, Inc., a private corporation specializing in English education and educational materials. Outside of Seoul, most branches are run by individual owners or companies as a franchised businesses much as McDonald's or other corporations do. Services CDI prepares students for the iBT TOEFL exam. They also run a research and development center which consists of teachers helping students. CDI is one of the quality language institute in south Korea. But CDI makes the students poorly with amazing quantity of homework and hard questions. They never respect students.But it is really good for teacher. The above is one person's opinion, but there are many, many teachers and students alike who would disagree. The statement above was written by a Korean student as clearly indicated by the "makes the students poorly" fragment and a lack of an article between "with" and "amazing." Clearly CDI teachers are failing to make a difference, even though I am a CDI teacher writing this. The previous sentence is a clear hasty generalization. Although I am no CDI apologist, it is entirely unfair to conclude that all CDI teachers make no difference from the evidence that this single student has imperfect grammar. Indeed, these kinds of grammatical mistakes are common to Korean students; and further, we have no data regarding the student's English level upon enrolling in CDI - s/he could very well have improved significantly. It is unfortunate that the 4 previous paragraphs say nothing about the actual company and instead focus on an obvious disgruntled Korean kid. Grammar errors like the one in paragraph 2 are common, even among the advanced levels like Birdie and Eagle. What this wiki SHOULD contain are facts related to things like hiring practices, salary averages, and other things related to the prospective English teachers who are more likely to visit this site. That said, there are other databases from which to find this data (like eslcafe forums), especially for the new teachers in the honeymoon stage of their careers. After teaching one year, there is a huge lack of information on how a teacher is to proceed; this is because most teachers do the year contract and leave. There are many reasons for this...but as long as these new teachers realize this, CDI, and most other hagwons, become an enjoyable experience. Just remember, it's only one year... The above paragraph is very accurate. However, it is very difficult to generalize about working conditions and practices as CDI operates under a franchise system. Working hours, days, and treatment vary wildly from one branch to the other, and even official policies set by the head office may not be followed. There is no substitute for contacting current employees at your prospective location. Also, note that CDI has a mandatory week of training run by head office that is like a boot camp with a lot of work and the possibility of failing and being sent home. This is mostly just to try to shock a little professionalism into slackers and weed out the real losers though, as in reality your branch is relying on you and they will do whatever it takes to give you another chance and pass you. Just remember, it's only one week.... Test preparation CDI products and services focus mainly on preparing students for the following tests: *iBT TOEFL *TOEFL Junior *TEPS